The coming year is going to be a very good one for our poetry catalog. As we wrap up what has been a year of surprises (pleasant and otherwise), we are pleased to announce that Trouble Department will publish two books of poetry in 2022.
Aprill 2022 will see the release of BODYELECTRONIC, a chapbook by Aerik Francis. A manically witty mapping of the intersections between digital life and the messiness of bodily existence, BODYELECTRONIC presents the kind of poetry reading experience that leaves the brain overclocked in the best possible way. Each of the chapbook’s 18 pieces will be worth coming back to again and again to feel out their many bends and subroutines. We feel like this will probably be timely subject matter for our cultural moment, but in these times a lot can happen in six months, so who knows? At least in the case of this chapbook, the uncertainty is part of the fun.
Aerik Francis is a Queer Black & Latinx poet and teaching artist based in Denver, Colorado, USA. They are a Canto Mundo poetry fellow and a The Watering Hole fellow. They are a poetry reader for Underblong poetry journal and a coordinator with Denver’s Slam Nuba. Aerik has writing published widely in print and on the net, links of which may be found on their website at phaentompoet.com.
August 2022 will see the release of the broken bird feeder, a full length collection by David Romanda. In this book, Romanda’s almost deceptively spare style puts a veneer of minimalism on work that can be by turns darkly comic and pitted with melancholy. Swathes of experience are distilled into waifish stanzas, and a turn of phrase can flip a brooding anecdote into a punchline or vice versa. It’s the rare kind of modern poetry that begs to be shared, whether in print or aloud at a dinner party.
David Romanda is the author of I’m Sick of Pale Blue Skies, a limited edition chapbook. His poem, “We Really Like Your Writing,” was included in Best Canadian Poetry 2021. Romanda lives in Kawasaki City, Japan.
